


The Greater Good

by pushingcrazies



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, Post-Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-27
Updated: 2012-03-27
Packaged: 2017-11-02 14:38:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 320
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/370091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pushingcrazies/pseuds/pushingcrazies
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sally thought she was doing the right thing.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greater Good

**Author's Note:**

> This was written right after The Reichenbach Fall premiered, but I only just recently found it.

Sally thought she was doing the right thing.  She was only trying to protect the general public from a man who was obviously out of his mind.  She’d seen him in a variety of stages - from high as a kite to aloof detecting machine to…well, they all referred to it as his “post-John” phase.

If she were honest, that was the most frightening phase of all.  Before John, Sherlock was surrounded by people who were amazed yet annoyed by him.  John, on the other hand, was in complete, reverent awe of him.  And under his praise, Sherlock truly blossomed.  He became more efficient, more arrogant, yet somehow more - dare she say it? - human.  And she thought…no, she was _convinced_ that Sherlock would do anything to keep John’s awe alive.

Up to and including staging crimes just so he could solve them.

Sally thought she was doing the right thing.

Until the morning after the…incident, when she came in extra early and found Lestrade’s office light already on.  She opened the door without knocking and reeled at what she saw.  Lestrade was sitting on the floor against the wall, looking as though he had not slept at all the previous night. Actually, judging by the bottle lying on its side next to him, he hadn’t.  He was bleary-eyed, probably not just from the alcohol.  There was a gun lying in his lap.  He didn’t look up when she entered, didn’t protest as she ushered him downstairs, using the least-traveled corridors to get him outside and into a cab.  She gave his address to the cabbie and went back inside to write up and file Lestrade’s request for bereavement leave.  She locked the gun in her desk drawer.

Sally had done what she needed to do to protect the general public, but in the process she had destroyed someone much kinder, more important to her, and far more fragile.


End file.
